Transportation and Gentrification and ‘Good Ole’ Corruption

 

"Cities as systems within systems of cities"

                   To study urban geography is to study the living environments of more than half the population of the planet. The diverse nature of urban environments is illustrated at the macro scale by the fact that, as many Western cities evolve towards a post-industrial, postmodern future, most Third World cities are striving to attain the characteristics of a modern industrial city (Pacione 2001, 849). However these are not the easiest steps for a developing region to take and often along the way, the transparency of these operations become quite opaque.

We can also further delineate that urban geography is the study of the system of cities + the study of the city as a system = the study of cities as systems within a system of cities (Hall and Barrett 2012).







The three major systems that would be looked at include: Transportation, Gentrification and Corruption.
The three would be examined and furthermore show how they can be considered an integral part of urban development.

Picture taken in Princess Town, located east of San Fernando, west of Rio Claro and North of Moruga.
The creation of inner roads allow for more access and thus development. This area my then become degraded ot attractive to the public sector and be at risk of gentrification. Now with all the increasinf profits to be gain corruption mey become a reality.

 

Transportation...
            Historically, villages were the dominant types of settlement and most cities grow out of villages, especially in pre-industrial cities which was focused around cultural establishes such as churches. Because the spatial organisation of a village does have any limits to growth it later became the basis for substantive territory expansion. As a result what use to be easily accessible like major institutions, are being forced further away from these areas. To cover the new distances new road were built taking spaces from environmental surroundings and other under-developed areas.

With a road system sprawl can be encouraged or discourage and this depends on the effectiveness and efficiency of these networks. This is not a global north or global south issue either because there can be efficient transportation routes in the global south as well. For instance Sao Paulo in South-eastern Brazil is geographically located in the global south but they have excellent mass transit that inter-connect with other transit types to get people around much quicker from both rural and urban area, thus decreasing congestion and sprawls. As compared to Trinidad, there are mass transit systems; however the efficiency may not be as good as compared to Sao Paulo. The major system is operates on the Priority Bus Route however to get to the bus route a reliance on a car is often the case. With the lack of mass transit interconnecting these areas sprawls outside of CBD’s such as POS and San Fernando becoming a living organism, growing and growing with each person’s thought of better opportunities, settlement patterns and ease of access to transport.
 

Gentrification???
                      Change is more likely to take the form of in situ improvements by occupants, and perhaps more of the upgrading and resale of shelter that already occurs where the private sector sees an opportunity to profit from this form of ‘gentrification’ (Pacione 2001, 653).

This video basically sums up what gentrification is as it relation to ethnic communities and shows how the residents of these ‘slum neighbourhoods’ were often the victims of clearance and urban renewal programmes.

It has is a sarcastic twist, and it is very entertaining.

                                                How to Gentrify your Neighbourhood - 2011

 Many cities began to experience the gentrification of select central and inner-city neighbourhoods during the 1950s, most notably London and New York. Today gentrification is a feature of the urban geography of the majority of larger cities in the advanced capitalist world (Pacione 2005, 288).
 

 

 Corruption!!!    
                         Some degree of corruption (e.g. favours for friends in council-house allocation or planning permission) is inevitable, and at an individual level does not have a great impact on public policy. Many Third World (soft states) governments exercise weak control over the activities of public administration. The corruption inherent in soft states reinforces patterns of inequality, since the mass of the population have little leverage in dealing with the elite and its representatives who control resources, whether it be managers in private firms or government officials. In many Third World countries, corruption is an accepted part of everyday life, manifested in nepotism in obtaining career positions, commission for providing government contracts, premiums to cover breaches of planning regulations, or additional administrative payments to speed up the bureaucratic process, or to obtain services. A principal factor underlying the widespread practice of corruption in many Third World cities is the generally low level of public-sector salaries, which provokes employees to augment their official incomes with illegal salary supplements.

 When corruption occurs within the higher classes of society it is most felt within the working class. With the increasing of transportation routes, it may way to the possibility of urban development and urban sprawl, with sprawl there is often gentrification or urban renewal projects, with then with them amount of money invested in these now renewed areas are targets for white collar crime. Now these activities maybe more common in developing countries or more brought to the forefront in third world nations but they occur in every region. However it is difficult to assess the extent in which corruption is a major force in shaping politics and these are the persons responsible for the progression of cities thus transport, gentrification and corruption can be consider as a cycle of urban development, displacement and organised crime, all having a major impact on the creating of sprawls.

When would this come to an end? These third aspects deals with planning, and without proper planning, especially from a bottom-up approach these issues may become exacerbated.

 

 

References

Hall, Tim, and Heather Barrett. 2012. Urban geography. 4th ed. London: Routledge.

Pacione, Michael. 2001. Urban geography: a global perspective. London: Routledge.

Pacione, Michael. 2005. Urban geography: A Global Perspective. 2nd ed. London: Routledge.